Travel for Tea

Few things speak to a Brit abroad more than a good cup to tea, so it’s quite a surprise that not every Englishman in the Indian Subcontinent has flocked to the Makaibari tea estate in Darjeeling. Nestled amongst hectares of virgin rainforest in the foothills of the Himalayas, Makaibari was the first tea estate in the world to be given Fair Trade certification and the first in Darjeeling to become 100% organic. What is more, in 2006 Makaibari set the world record price for the most expensive tea ever sold at auction. A tea garden where it is grown, will instantly tell you why. 

Makaibari is run as a business as, inevitably, it has to make money to survive. However, it is also an experiment in environmental and social sustainability, and it is this that sets it apart. Over 30 years of innovations have clearly produced a well-oiled machine, but the estate management, a joint body of predominantly female elected representatives from the workforce, is always keen to test out new ideas. Volunteers, everyone from gap year students to environmental researchers, agriculture experts and followers of the philosopher Rudolf Steiner, are encouraged to come to Makaibari, learn, share their skills, and then to go away and spread the estate’s way of life: a belief in the inter-dependence of everything.

In the neighbouring village of Kurseong there are a number of small hotels, but the best way to get to know the estate it to live there with a family. A proportion of profits from tea sales has been put into equipping and running homestays for volunteers and tourists alike. 21 families, spread through Makaibari’s seven villages, supplement their income by hosting guests at a reasonable rate of $25 per couple per night and including all meals. Each homestay has had a western-style toilet installed, so you’re safe from having to use a squat in the garden in the middle of the night.

Volunteers can get involved with every aspect of estate life. For those with an interest in conservation, tasks range from recording sightings of snow leopards and red pandas, to assessing the extend of bio-diversity in different parts of the estate. A tail-less amphibian, believed to be extinct for over 80 years, was discovered and identified at Makaibari last year, attracting interest from both the local press and CNN. Tree planting is an ongoing activity of vital importance as tree roots hold the soil together in an area otherwise prone to landslips. The tree planting programme seems to be working as Makaibari is the only tea estate in the region that has not suffered from landslides in recent years; elsewhere, as soon as the heavy monsoon rains fall, there are insufficient numbers of deep-rooted plants to prevent the soil from being washed away, taking with it people, their homes and livelihoods.

Women’s empowerment has been at the core of Makaibari’s development strategy from the very beginning. As mentioned previously, the joint management body is dominated by women and, unusually in the tea industry, the estate also employs female supervisors. Each household has been given two cows and access to a bio-gas converter to relieve women of the burden of collecting firewood for cooking, and it also provides them with an additional source of income as they can sell the manure back to the estate as organic fertiliser. Volunteers can help by providing training for would-be entrepreneurs, many of whom already take advantage of Makaibari’s micro credit scheme. Know-how on anything from production methods to computer literacy, book keeping and marketing is invaluable, and the estate’s women are incredibly keen to learn.

Education motivates both workers and their families at Makaibari and is well-supported by the management. A regular cycle of English speaking volunteers are required to teach English in the estate’s schools; regular conversation with a native speaker gives Makaibari’s students a real head start over their peers. Education also takes place outside the classroom. Volunteers recently designed posters and other visual aids explaining the importance of good hygiene in staying healthy and took them around the estate’s villages as a mini, touring exhibition.

Makaibari is 100% organic and has been since the late 1980s. In addition to the cow dung fertiliser, a number of other biodynamic preparations are used in the fields. These include stags’ bladders, cow horns, ground quartz and other natural, if unusual, products. Rudolf Steiner, the philosopher behind biodynamic agriculture, believed that this particular combination of fertilisers, spread on the fields at the right time of the month, would channel cosmic and earthly energy into the roots of the plants, making them stronger and healthier. 

At the end of a long day’s work which, though rewarding, is inevitably tiring, a walk through the estate is a balm for the soul. Dense, lush rainforest adjoins emerald green fields, both of which cling to the mountain precariously. In picking season (approximately March to October), lines of brightly clad women spiral through the fields like flocks of tropical birds, resplendent in pink, yellow and red. In the distance you can see the land fall suddenly away as it meets the dusty plains of northern India, its hazy horizon seemingly a world away from verdant Makaibari.

Spirit healing with the Shamans of Kyrgyzstan

Russian Orthodox churches and small, silver-domed mosques may dominate the skyline in Kyrgyz towns, but the country’s religious heart goes far further back in time. Long before Christ and Muhammad walked the earth, Central Asia’s shamans served as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual worlds, connecting the people to the heavens. 

Shamanists believe that spirits, both good and evil, exist and play important roles within individual lives and wider society. The shaman can communicate with spirits, learning from them and, through gifts or threats, encourage them to change their behaviour. It is for these reasons that the shaman holds a respected position within the community: he (or she) can find solutions to problems plaguing the community, foretell the future, and rid people of the sicknesses caused by the presence of malevolent spirits. 

The deity invoked by shamanists in Central Asia is Tengri – Lord of the Eternal Blue Sky. Tengri and his consort, the mother-earth spirit Eje, together provide everything that a man requires. It is a man’s responsibility to live in harmony with his surroundings, respecting both the earth and the heavens that gave him birth and now sustain him. When his world is thrown off-balance, either through spirit interference or his own misdemeanours, a man must ask the shaman to intercede on his behalf and put his life back on track. 

It is likely Tengriism has been in existence as long as Central Asia has been populated. It evolved in Siberia and Mongolia, which even today is called Munkh Khukh Tengriin Oron (Land of the Eternal Blue Sky) in Mongolian. However, it was not until the arrival of the region’s most infamous son, Genghis Khan, in the twelfth century that shamanist ritual became institutionalized and spread across the Mongol Empire. Tengriism reached as far as Bulgaria in Eastern Europe, where the Danube Bulgars named a local mountain Tangra in his honor. The mountain kept this name as late as the 15^th century. 

Tengriism was no stranger to attack, having fended off revolts and attempts at conversion from the Scythians and Dagestani Huns, as well as Christian and Muslim groups. The greatest threat to its survival, however, was not religious but a political one: communism. 

It is estimated that almost half Kyrgyzstan’s population died or were killed following the country’s take-over by the Soviet Union. Many more people fled over the eastern border to China, or south in to Tajikistan and Afghanistan, taking their traditions with them. Those who did stay were forcefully urbanised, educated according to the Russian model, and began to lose touch with their nomadic heritage. Atheism, basic state health care and the local communist party supplanted what had gone before.  

Tengriism may have gone underground for 70 years, but it certainly did not die. The two decades since independence have seen a public revival not only of the Kyrgyz language, traditional epics and sports, but also of shamanist faith and healing. Leaving the modern capital, Bishkek, behind me, I traveled 17 hours by car deep into the mountains of southern Kyrgyzstan.

A shaman must be in touch with nature and so, although its possible to live in a city, most are found in villages, covered by the shadows of 7000m plus peaks that stretch out to touch the heavens. Almajaan lives on the jailoo (summer pasture) above one such village, surrounded by the wild flowers and herbs that help her in her healing. Like many others, Almajaan did not decide to become a shaman healer: she was called. Pains in her limbs, fatigue, and violent dreams first caused her to seek out spiritual guidance over 40 years ago. Although the afflictions have never entirely gone, she has learned to control the spirits that cause them and to use her skills to help others.

Shaman healers do not advertise, and they do not charge for their services. People seek out a healer based on personal reputation, and give what they can towards their keep if they must stay with the healer for a prolonged period. Aigul, a girl of 14, has been with Almajaan for two weeks. A problem in her joints has led to muscle wastage in her legs and she is having trouble walking. It is both painful and frustrating, not to mention socially debilitating.

Almajaan begins each day with a walk. She climbs from the valley up into the mountains, looking for plants she needs. It is the only time she spends completely alone. By the time she returns to her yurt (felt tent), Aigul is up and waiting for her first of the day’s massages. She lies on the carpeted floor as the healer bends over her body, holds her hands a few inches above the skin, and lets the spirits guide the movement of her fingers. From time to time Aigul winces but Almajaan seems oblivious: she is completely focused on the task in hand. After an hour, Almajaan stops suddenly, straightens and walks outside. The session is complete. 

In the time she has spent with Almajaan, Aigul has gone from virtual paralysis to being able to walk a few steps unaided. She is growing noticeably stronger and, although Almajaan is unsure how long it will take, she is confident Aigul will walk again. The spirits have told her so and the treatment is having the desired effect.